She was the girl that played with fire. "Can I have some matches? My parents need to light some candles and we ran out," she'd say to anybody willing to listen.
Sometimes they'd comply, but not without a hearty warning, "Be careful now young lady, it's dangerous."
"I know," she'd reply before sprinting home, clutching the box in her hand. She'd get home, quickly taking out a match and struck it, marveling at the flames.
It was like a romantic affair. She loved how it danced and flickered before her eyes, captivating her like an elegant ballerina. She'd stare at it until her eyes watered, watching the wood burn and crackle in a symphony only she could recognize. She adored how the wood would blacken and crumble at the slightest touch after the fire had passed over. She wondered as it burned paper, how the edges would curl as though trying to protect the body before the fire engulfed all. She'd hold it for so long it scorched her fingers.
"It's because your hair is like fire," they said. She hated that. How could her hair be fire? It was red, no more no less. But fire was so much more. How could her hair capture the oranges, the golds, the scarlets, and the hints of crystalline blue all intertwined into a magnificent specimen of beauty and pure energy? Quite simply it couldn't. So for that, she loved fire all the more for its gift of beauty.
That year she became a creature of the flames, like a phoenix as beautiful as Aegle—daughter of Helios himself. The blisters adorning her fingers were her rings. The odor of smoke and ash her perfume.
That was how her life progressed. She burned and burned and never stopped burning. It was only natural for her to blaze her way through life and save the world. One way or another.
Facing down her nemesis, beaten and torn, she smiled. Fire never stopped until it had consumed everything it could to survive. "The candle that burns twice as bright, lasts half as long," it said.
She laughed. She'd always been blazing.
"Eruption."
And all was black.